A Faith That Suffers

            What is the life of a Christian supposed to look like? Is it Church services and Bible studies five nights a week? Is it knowing the bible inside and out? Is it sinning less and less and less? Ummmm – No - although many act as if that were true.

So many in America believe their faith is to be an upward climb of some sort, leading to us sinning less and being nicer and becoming more and more like Jesus, “every day, in every way”. They live their faith out, although they wouldn’t say it this way, as though if they are good – God will bless them and when they are bad – God will punish them. As someone has said, “That’s not Christianity – that’s karma.”

The message of the Bible is a simple one of God’s radical grace toward a people that can’t keep themselves from getting into trouble and constantly needed (and still need) to be rescued. It is the story of a suffering savior, who lived His entire life in poverty, and yet was richer than Bill Gates and Oprah combined. Jesus laughed and danced and sang and turned water into wine and He knew how to have fun, but He also suffered throughout His life. Not only the suffering he went through during the day of His crucifixion, but all through His ministry we find Him weeping for Jerusalem or sweating blood, or grieving for the hearts of those who would betray him and kill him. He was a man that got involved in the work of God where He knew he should. He did it better than we ever could, but the way He went about things reveals a truth about life that is not preached in North American churches these days, and seems to be understood much more in countries where people are suffering or dying for their faith and places where you find the same “tired and huddled masses yearning to be free” that the statue of Liberty has been inviting into America for over 130 years. Part of life on this planet as a Christian is the concept of self-induced suffering. We are called to love the unlovely and we simply are too busy loving the lovely too often. It seems to me now that sometimes the very same things that are Americas blessings are also one of the root causes of the Church here developing a Christology that believes more in itself, and it’s programs and sermon series than on the finished work of Christ to redeem us. This paradigm revolves around seeking happiness and God’s blessing through faith and obedience and when they are sharing in His suffering, it is looked at as punishment. This should not be.

            I certainly don’t mean we all need to sell all our stuff and live as paupers, or even that we should not be hopeful of God’s blessings for our lives. It means that we serve a Savior who suffered, and whenever we do the hard work of the Gospel and “get down and dirty” with real people about real problems and cry real tears together – it hurts. You may sometimes lay awake at night with a burden for a brother or sister, or a friend who can’t find peace but won’t listen when you tell them about Jesus. You may wonder why God does things the way He does sometimes and when your friend dies of cancer even with all the prayers you prayed and tears you cried, and the hurt, and you won’t get any answer. You may even get angry with God and curse Him out. You will suffer. It is a natural result of being human in a fallen world. Christians in America need to learn that badly.

            Some reading this live in places where real suffering is going on right now, and may even know people who have died for their faith. People they love may have died for Jesus. These have hurt and cried the same tears of sorrow that Jesus cried and most in the Church in America have never tasted. This reveals itself clearly in our selfish faith, that looks more to the number of church meetings I’ve attended and how much Bible reading I’ve done, than it does the work of loving people and caring for the hurting ones He has placed right in front of us to gauge where your walk is with Jesus. It is a faith more about getting people into pews than bringing Gods love from the pews to the people who need it.

            It is honestly to the point that in some pulpits in America messages are preached where there is almost an unspoken expectation that God will bless the lives of those who are deemed to be “living for God” and punish those who step out of line. This self-obsessed Christian faith is not the one Jesus America from ten miles over any city/town/suburb - it would look like a field of stars. Each star is a church, and the darkness in between would be the places the Church doesn’t reach because too many Christians are all hidden away in their “Christian” places, and are often heard grumbling among themselves about how bad things are getting in the world.

taught or lived. In fact, it seems to be exactly what Jesus railed against and accused the Pharisees of in the Bible. Religion is now used as a tool to clean people up and make good, decent citizens out of them. That is not a faith that centers on Jesus. It is a faith that centers on us and our ability to please Him. True faith in the living God will CAUSE us to put ourselves into places where suffering is going on, because that kind of faith that understands that the darkness is where the light is needed the most. If we were to look at a map of the reach of the Church in

            Remember - God didn’t just call Jesus and the Apostles and the Church founders to share in his sufferings. He called us all.

1 Peter 4:13

“13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

Most of us in the Church in America have an over-exaggerated opinion of the depth of our

own suffering. If we would humble ourselves, and open our eyes to the depth of suffering in the world, and take off our masks and see ourselves as the selfish lot we have become and understand that we are all really just a bunch of frail hurting people who need God and each other because we are desperate, needy, and unable to do anything of lasting value on our own. Then we will look to Jesus alone to deliver us. When we truly understand how powerless and hopeless we are when compared to our perfect God – as an individual or a nation - then and only then we can be strong.

Paul said it wonderfully in 2 Cor 12:10 –

“When I am weak, then I am strong.”

Self-induced suffering in the life of a Christian does not mean we are called to beat ourselves up. This kind of suffering is a natural result of being in close relationships with others and being involved in the lives of people with whom God has led you to. It is simply part of life as a Christian. When we see God’s love, and how He suffered for us, it is only our own pride that would cause us to expect anything different for our own lives. Plus it’s really not supposed to be about us anyway, right?